Remembering Althea McNish, A Forgotten Revolutionary Of British Design

IKEA in Tottenham might seem an improbable favourite haunt for an icon of British design, but before her death in 2020, aged 96, that is where you would often find Althea McNish. She would peruse the showrooms, dressed head to toe in the bright, bold and sensuous fabrics she designed. “She would point out things and say they needed more colour – she always had a glint in her eye,” remembers Rose Sinclair, curator of the first major exhibition on McNish at the William Morris Gallery, Colour Is Mine.
Born in a middle-class family in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, in 1924, McNish was already a successful painter when she arrived in the UK in November 1950. She attended the London College of Printing, and evening classes at Central St Martins, where she met the likes of Eduardo Paolozzi. In 1954, she enrolled at the Royal College of Art, where she studied textile design – and was one of few women of colour at the prestigious art school.
“My designing is functional but free, you can wear it, sit on it, lie on it, stand on it,” McNish said of her work, which she described as a “statement of my being”. She quickly became known as much for her technical acuity and understanding of the commercial side of design as for her painterly approach – applying brushes directly to silkscreen, and using monoprinting to create the sketches and experiment with colourways for her inimitable, intricately layered style. “She was confident and competent – and that was projected into her work,” says Sinclair.
The day after her graduation from the RCA in 1958, McNish presented her portfolio at Liberty’s – and was commissioned on the spot to create a collection. One of those designs, Marina, is on show at William Morris Gallery, and Liberty is reissuing a capsule collection of 12 of McNish’s fabrics as limited editions – the first time they have been available to buy in decades.

Althea McNish working on murals for the ocean liner SS Oriana in 1959. Courtesy N15 Archive

Playing on a projector at the exhibition is rare video footage following an immaculately dressed McNish at work, and in discussion with fashion designers. One of her significant contributions to the industry was her decision to collaborate closely with designers from the beginning of the creative process, so that she could adapt her textiles to suit their purpose.
Though McNish considered Britain her second home, Trinidad was never far from her mind. In two rare early paintings made soon after she arrived in the UK, figures appear in lush, rural landscapes on the island; a third painting on display, made from memory, captures the vibrant energy of the hosay festival, an annual Indo-Muslim celebration that all Trinidadians took part in. Flora, fauna and Carnival would continue to inspire McNish throughout her career. The paintings are the only surviving works in the medium by McNish, whose archive and legacy have been hampered by a lack of care and attention until recently.
McNish’s most popular fabric designs were inspired by her early life in Trinidad, but they also showcase the way she scaled up and transformed English flowers “into Caribbean flamboyance” (as McNish herself put it), reinventing British landscapes. In the Essex wheat fields she portrays in the spectacular Golden Harvest (a bestselling furnishing fabric produced for Hull Traders in the 1960s which stayed in production for two decades), McNish was reminded of the verdant glow of the sugarcane fields in her birthplace. She drew inspiration from everywhere – as she stated, “I don’t have to look very far, it’s usually objects right at hand that come to my aid. I see an idea in an onion, cabbage or any other item lying around the studio.”

Golden Harvest by Althea McNish, now on display at William Morris Gallery.Paul Tucker

But there was also a strong social and political current in McNish’s interest in nature and in the decorative arts, too. “Many of these designs were produced in an era when Enoch Powell was making his 1968 Rivers of Blood speech,” says Sinclair, “suggesting migrants in this country should be sent ‘back home’ – and here’s Althea decorating British spaces with her homeland.” This was underscored by McNish’s involvement with the Caribbean Artists Movement, an influential group of artists, writers, and musicians from the Caribbean active from 1966 to 1972, advocating for the importance of contributions of artists of colour in Britain.
“She knew what it meant to champion this new aesthetic, to keep challenging and changing the canon,” Sinclair notes. “She was a quiet activist – she showed her agency, her heritage, and herself through her work – and she didn’t let anything hold her back.”
McNish was also emphatic about who she had in mind when she was designing. In 1966, she created a “Bachelor Girls Room” at the Ideal Home Show. The room is reconstructed in all its splendour at William Morris Gallery, demonstrating McNish’s vision of “how a young girl about town would use the space – she wanted it to be flexible, inexpensive, and comfortable for friends”. The same year, the Queen wore dresses made with fabrics designed by McNish on her Royal Tour of the Caribbean. McNish herself declared “women should always have the opportunity of showing off themselves, their talents and their achievements”.
Many of McNish’s contributions to the shape of British design and culture have been overlooked. Sinclair hopes this exhibition will begin to “set the record straight” and address the absence of information on McNish’s life and work. Sinclair herself, an MA graduate of Central St Martins who teaches design at Goldsmiths, was astounded she hadn’t come across McNish until 2005, some years after she graduated. Colour Is Mine will open new audiences’ eyes and minds to her dazzling, prismatic achievements and blazing passion: “Designing, for me, is part of me. It’s not just something that I acquired as a means to an end. I breathe and sleep and dream it.”
Colour Is Mine is at the William Morris Gallery until 11 September
(Source: Vogue, Charlotte Jansen, 5 April 2022)